barbed wire snapping song

{photo by Elora Ramirez}

we live in a world of barbed wire fences.

we're pressing flesh against sharp points and rough edges. we're desperate enough for touch, for connection, for community, that we are willing to endure the slicing and the bleeding and the tetanus-created lockjaw of silence. and it's all for the sake of being touched.

and here I am, in my home with the hardwood floors and the windows that face the East with the sun flowing in, humming Children of the Heavenly Father with tears in my eyes. because this can't be what He meant when He breathed His name over us like the holiest of commissions.

it's fitting that we're stepping into this time of year, slowly placing one foot in front of another as we approach each station of the Cross, each moment in the journey from Son of Man to Lamb of God. we're approaching His time of broken body. we are standing mere feet away from the blood-stained Israeli stones.

and I'm hushed in the holiness of it all. hushed in the realization that there was the barbed wire of nature that pressed deep into the forehead of fully-Man-fully-God. there was the bits of bone and metal and stone twisted into leather strips that severed skin from muscle and bone.

the barbed wire was destroyed the moment that death started working backwards. 

"it is finished." and He meant it, every weak and agonized syllable. it is done. it is complete. there are no more fences, no more twisted rusted metal gates designed to shred and tear and bleed and sever. it is finished. 

we're good at swords, somehow. we're good at evisceration in the name of love. we're good with breaking, but not so good with loving the broken. we're good with thudding, not so good with the gentle touch. we're good with barbed wire fences and darkened windows.

I want to be good with Jesus. I want to become good with Holiness streaming from my lips like water and Grace filling the baskets surrounding my feet like so much bread and fish created from scraps of "all she has is..."

I don't want to be so good with a sword. I want to be better with wire-cutters. there are wounds, blood, all for the sake of being touched. there is the virus of silence raging rampant through the veins of those who have been bound and gagged by the well-meaning millstone carvers.

but look at yourself, beloved ones. those scarlet letters are written in chalk. the rain is coming, pouring, and they are blurring into streaks that match the glorious sunrise. do you hear? that is the sound of rust caving under blades.

run free, lioness. He has laid flowers in your hair. He is leaping, arms raised and mouth wide open at the joy of you. the sight of you has Him undone.

the night has ended. this is the Morning. 

{beloved, there is room for you with us in community. no barbed wire there. only meadows. 

join us.}

the ashes

today is the day of ashes. today is the day where sins are spoken aloud for the sake of repentance from Dark and a purposeful turning toward Light. today is the day when fingers brush against foreheads and the sign of the cross lays plain in a darkened smudge upon skin. tradition speaks of palm fronds from the previous year's Palm Sunday celebration being used to create the ashes. it's cyclical, symbolic if not literally done. 

the ashes are made by His coming. 

this phrase evokes a holy hush within my soul. sins are spoken and forgiveness is sought, and the ashes are smeared in the shape of the instrument that smothered the air from His lungs as His life drained out. for me. and the ashes were made from the waving fronds of the King's entrance into the city. 

when He comes, the Darkness bursts into flame. the blackness becomes Light and redemption is spoken in a voice once whispering but now rising in volume. that is what this season is. it is a whispering start that lifts and intensifies with each passing day. this season is not about what you are giving up, it is not about forty days of enduring life without internet or caffeine or breakfast. 

this day is the calm that settles before the storm. this season is the rumble that comes to alert all who hear that there is a bursting coming, a breaking forth unlike any other. 

so this year, I am pursuing Lent with an air of anticipation. I am leaving shame, expectations, guilt, self-loathing, and scarcity on the skull-shaped hill. I am wearing the ashes on my soul because they are a reminder that darkness is brief and that Water is stronger than dirt. 

this is the day of ashes. this is the day of repentance. this is the day of heads bowed to the floor, ears pressed flat to the earth, listening. this is the day of the whispering.

my Deliverer is coming. 

my Deliver is standing by. 

in which I am doing something

{photo by me via Instagram}

in 2011, I wrote 297 posts.

it was the second year of my blog, the first full year from January to December. my mother called me prolific, and it was true. I was writing a post nearly every single day, sitting at the computer agonizing over something to write that was profound enough, that was rich enough, that was "good enough" for me to push publish and let it fly. and if I ever missed  a day, ever missed a step, I would apologize profusely, as if I had broken some never-made promise to always be present, always have words.

since I started writing, I've always felt like I had something to prove. that's what happens when you get married a week after your nineteenth birthday instead of going to college, and people are breathing down your neck for you to do something. it's not commonly done, choosing to become a wife instead of pursuing a degree. and so I wrote, wildly, and in some respects it was good because it was a honing period, a chance for me to understand the edges of my voice and what it had the potential to sound like , eventually.

but I had to clear my throat first because I had so many other voices at war in my vocal chords to the point that it was hard to figure out which was mine and which ones belong to everyone else. they taught me a lot, these other voices, because they pruned me down by making me feel uncomfortable. their words fit in their mouths so perfectly, but they were the wrong shape for mine.

:: :: 

I started to press myself deep into the Lion in those days, the ones that heralded the start of my thrashing as I shed my dead skin and sunk deeper into that lioness hide where I belonged, a selkie of a land-bourne sort. that's when I started to realize something.

maybe Susan wasn't "spared" death in the train crash because she was leaning toward boys and make-up and things that were pushing her into socially-appropriate adulthood. maybe it wasn't Lewis' way of chiding children for growing up, for choosing to walk . because if that was his point, if his purpose was to chase away adulthood and keep them locked in innocence forever, then Aslan wouldn't have been needed, and His own words would have been made void.

{photo by Nikki Jean Photography}

there, I have a different name. you must learn to know me by that name. that was the very reason you were brought into Narnia, so that by knowing Me here, you might know me better there. 

and in those words, I started to understand.

I have absolutely nothing to prove for being in the Land where He placed me. 

my voice and my story and my authenticity are mine, breathed holy straight into my lungs from the mouth of Lion on the mountaintop. it is a shift from the familiar, and it makes me feel a bit of a dervish. but this view, it's breathtaking.

I've spit out the salt water. my throat is clear.

and I'm prepared to speak.

to the men from a Jesus feminist

{photo by Jennifer}

dear men, 

I'm married to one of you. the tall blonde blue-eyed love of my life with the contagious laugh and the heart the size of Texas. 

my best friend is one of you. the supermodel military man with the lopsided smile and the passion for both clothes and cars. 

maybe, one day, I'll raise of you as a wide-eyed little boy with his papa's hair and that same quirky grin.

I'm surrounded by you on a regular basis, in close contact and in passing. the delivery man, the guy searching the top shelf at Walmart for the last package of cream cheese. 

I'm a feminist, in case you weren't already aware by the things I say and the words I share. 

but there's something I want to make sure that you know. 

I'm a Jesus feminist because I see you. 

isn't that so funny, how that word "feminist" somehow makes it sound like I hate your gender? like I want to take each of you and fling you into the boiling sea, laughing while you sink feebly, because I am a roaring woman and I don't need you. 

but that's the exact opposite. 

I know that you are more than the lower half of your body. I know that you have more self-control than you are given credit for these days. because I know you are the ruler of yourself, and you take responsibility for your own mind and your own actions. 

I know some of you are dogs, that some of you have broken hearts and spirits. but you aren't all like that. because we're all human, and some of us are cruel and some of us are kind. you're more than the ones that cause shame and regret. I can't see you all that way, because I hate when that happens to women. when that happens to me. 

your masculinity is not defined by ripping and rending and tearing. you don't have anything to prove. and if I've ever made you feel that way, I'm sorry. 

I know that some of you throw logs and some of you paint. I know some of you fix cars and some of you audit taxes. I know some of you dance and some of you write and some of you walk the beat with a gun on your hip. I know that you're all men. I know some of you are broken, that some of you have had the fight ripped out of you by a culture that throws your tears back in your face, that laughs

{photo by Jennifer}

at your troubles and tells you, 

suck it up. be a man. 

but I can't help but go back to the words of the God who saw you from before the dawn of time, the One who created you the same as He did me ::

He wouldn't offer to bottle your tears if He didn't expect you to shed them.

I know that you have worth. I know that some of you are feminists too. I know that you love, be it silently or loudly. some of you are bearers of privilege, the kind that makes the road easier for you than for me. but you know something else? 

that does not discount you from having a voice. 

being a feminist doesn't mean I hate you. it doesn't mean I want to overthrow you, destroy you, or render you obsolete. it means I love you, I respect you. 

hating you isn't true feminism. we want to see you succeed. you are our husbands, our brothers, our sons, our friends. 

we are feminists because we love you. we are feminists because we see you as more than an insatiable sexual creature ruled by your penis. we are feminists because we see you have been shaped by the same Hands that shaped us. 

because the way this works is that there doesn't have to be a choosing of sides, men or women. there can just be us. a united front. us and you, all together. we can just be.

promise. 

the one where I'm resolving to write a book

{photo by Jennifer Upton}

I'm already working on my list of resolutions for 2014.

I know, it might be a bit presumptuous. I might be stepping ahead of myself just a bit. but I'm shivering with the anticipation of what this coming year is going to hold. 

the big one on the top of my list: write a book. my book. my story. my words. it's been brewing inside of me for a long time -- since I was eleven, if you want to get technical. I didn't realize it at the time, of course, but this passion for story has been living inside me since long before I acknowledged its presence. 

the big things are throwing themselves at me, of course. I don't have an agent or an editor, I don't have a clue as to what I'm doing. I've only ever written fiction, save for here on my blog, and I'm not even sure how to put my words out in a way that won't sound ridiculous or overly contrived. 

they're all lies. that much I think I've come to understand over the past year. but they're damn compelling lies. they feel exceptionally realistic, not unfounded. and those are just the surface ones. there's also the big ones, the big "what if"s that take over every scrap of my mind if I'm not careful. 

what if no one buys my book? what if no agent thinks my words are worth it, whatever that means? what if...what if my words hurt someone? these are the big ones, the ones that keep me up at night. the ones that lead me to light incense in my kitchen and practically fling myself into the Ocean of Him, whispering, won't You please just take me all the way down? 

the funny thing is, I couldn't even bring myself to acknowledge that I am a writer until this past year. if anyone asked me, I'd respond with, oh, I'm a blogger. and I do NaNoWriMo. but I'm not published. I'm not a real writer or anything.

{photo by dramaticelegance}

this looming year, this precipice year, is already brimming. it's like when you're standing on a cliff beside the sea, and you can't see the waves, but the ground is growling and shuddering and trembling beneath your feet. and you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the sea is there. just one or two more steps, and you'll be off the edge. you'll be falling. 

I'm still not sure what this means for me. and I won't deny the terror. I won't deny the fear that comes with the unknown, and the wondering, and the what if's. like I said, they're everywhere.

but He knows. 

and He's standing between me and the lies, the cliff coming up behind me, and He's roaring the holiest of expletives at the ever-creeping fears. 

leave her the eff alone. she's Mine.

and still He's stepping forward, toward me, urging me onward. His eyes are telling me jump. just jump. 

so that's what 2014 is. here on the edge, six days from the start. I don't have a parachute. I don't have wings, at least not that I can see. so the plan is :: I have no plan. the rules are that I'm listening and I'm breathing and I'm taking that final step right off the edge and I'm letting myself float in midair on a puff of Lion's breath. 

and so, in 2014, I'm leaping off a precipice. 

I'm going to write a book. 

laughing at Jesus

{photo by jennifer upton}

I remember the first time I went to the mission. I don't remember how old I was, but I remember it was cold. I was with my grandfather and his friend, a chaplain whose name I can't recall. I know I was young.

and I remember the first time I ever heard someone laugh at the name of Jesus.

I had never seen a prostitute before. I don't think I even knew what the word meant. but I remember her clothes :: black leather jacket, hot pink shirt that plunged lower than anything I had ever seen. I remember her hair, box-blonde with obvious dark roots, piled up on top of her head. I remember the cigarette dangling from her fingers.

she was sitting behind me on the plastic chairs. the chaplain asked, when you hear the name Jesus, what do you think? and the woman laughed and screamed, holy schmoly. effing Christians!

the chaplain kept in stride, never breaking for a second. I remember that. he pointed to her and repeated the first part of her words like a teacher accepting answers from a crowd of boisterous students, glad they were speaking at all.

I don't remember anything else that was said after that. 

I had never heard someone respond that way to Jesus. I never even knew that existed, never knew that people thought that way about Christians. I was confused, hurt, a little girl who had grown up with Jesus from day one and never even dreamed that someone wouldn't like Him. why didn't she love Christians?

{photo by jennifer upton}

and then I grew up. and I started seeing that woman more often.

obviously it wasn't the same face. but the eyes were identical. I saw her everywhere, in crowds and in churches. I found her in the supermarket. I noticed her at the post office. I realized that I was friends with her.

and now I understand that laughter. I hear it differently. it was mocking, caustic, and was laden with so much pain. it was the sound of a woman who had been slapped and kicked and knocked down a thousand times, had reached out her hand, and had someone spit in her face.

she had been given up on by the ones who were supposed to be the hands and the feet. I don't know every step she took. but she is familiar to me now. her story is one I understand, her words are ones I completely comprehend.

He didn't come for us to look down, to refuse to meet the eyes of humanity. He was born for lifting up. for getting dirty. for putting on skin and blood and pain. He touched.

can't we?

a letter to December

dear December,

you begin on a Sunday this year, and i love that, because that's symmetry and my heart likes that. it feels right to begin at the beginning of the beginning.

you're permission for me. this is Advent, expectation of newness. it's always been sacred for me. it's not just you, December, with your specially marked pages and the little square boxes all in a row. because i'm more than just boxes, and you know that.

but then, so is He.

i feel so often like all the mystery has been drained out of Faith, that is is left only to words from experienced mouths, eyes that have read the same words but understand them "better." they tell us what to see, and our eyes must find focus or else we are assumed to be wanting.

but you, December. you, season of Advent. you, Son of Man. you, Word made Flesh. you are permission to embrace the mystery. you are the entryway into all the things that so many who walk in and out of those familiar doors find to be sacrilege.

but you come with a breath of icy cold and nights so dark they are almost blue and glittering whisper of a thousand stars. you come with heartache and tears and pain just as much as you come with sacredness and magic. you come with devastation and you come with expectancy.

but you are also a promise.

oh come, oh come, Emmanuel. 

{this is another in my prompt series from story sessions. we are a community of women, of writers, of seekers. join us?}

the end of passe love

{photo via dramaticelegance}

i am a voice on the internet.

it is sacrilegious to say that i feel like being as blogger has given me a deeper understanding of John the Baptist? i can identify with the sand and the voice and the wildness, his voice echoing in a wilderness, bouncing off rocks and scrub brush in an effort to reach the ears of those who needed to hear :: the Kingdom is at hand. 

the final result of John's words were a sword that severed his head from his body. bloggers deal with words. it's a different kind of pain. 

i knew that when i wrote this post, and especially this one, that there would be backlash. it's to be expected when you put your heart on the expanse of the internet :: you're not always going to get a gold star. but there are things i didn't expect.

:: i didn't expect to be told that Jesus didn't want me anymore. 

it's culture shock to hear words like that, be it from a stranger's anonymous mouth or from lips that have smiled at you in friendship time and time again. it's hard to wrap your mind around, hard to appear strong when your mouth is opening and closing and your brain is spinning and the tears are coming without permission.

i grew up in a place where the words Jesus loves you was repeated almost without meaning, to the point that it became as parroted as a lunchtime prayer. it had purpose, of course, to comfort and assure and fix the broken hearts that surrounded us. it was almost part of the liturgy :: stand up, sit down, pass the plate, Jesus loves you.

{photo via dramaticelegance}

i wonder when we stopped believing the chant. when did the fact that we are loved become so passe?
when did it become easy to tell the ones that we disagree with that maybe it's good that they're running, that they're scared, that they are turning down torn and battered labels because He didn't really want them anyway. when did that happen?

it's killing me.

i'm not sure when love became synonymous with damnnation within the Church :: to be used with care, only in appropriate situations, but most often directed toward those who are headed toward a path that doesn't "look right."

maybe the path is a little bit darker because His wings are spreading a broader shadow.

i'm over the debates of whether heaven is meeting earth unforseen or sloppy wet. i would so much rather drown in the sea that whispers against the sand, oh, how He loves.

even me.
especially you.

permission to not be a Christian anymore {page six}

{photo via dramaticelegance}

i've been sitting on what to write in this post for more than a week. i was so excited when i wrote my last post, so excited about my own bravery to share pieces of my story, that i wanted to share more and more and more. and then the brave went away, and i sat in all the silence. 

because i've come to a realization over the past several months. it's something beyond what i ever thought i would acknowledge :: something i never thought i'd be brave enough to say. 

i can't be a Christian anymore. i just can't.

and i know those words cause a certain level of discomfort to billow up in the stomach of those Christians who read them. there's something that sits wrong, the instinct to grip me by the shoulders and say, no, wait, no, don't say that. that's not right. don't do that. don't say that. 

but before you throw a rock at me, ask me what i mean. ask me what i'm giving up. because honestly, it's not Jesus that i'm giving up. not by a long shot. i refuse to give Him up. 

but i'm giving up my supposed white robes and taking the Israeli dirt covered one instead. i'm spending time with the unclean ones instead of the ones that whisper. and I'm picking up the lame ones that the Church has hobbled one too many times. because i feel like the Church is locked in this childish game, the one where fingers grasp an arm and connect hand to face over and over with the chant, stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself. 

and then they wonder why the bruised ones don't return.

it makes me cry, hard and long, a keening wail into the night. i feel so like Him in these moments, screaming, oh God my God, why have You forsaken me? because i feel so alone, like i have love smeared all over my hands but everyone else is afraid to get the stains on them.

it's that word, that strange word that has become so warped and twisted. they will know us by our love. it's written there, in black and white. but why do they know us by all the things we hate? the laundry list of the things Christians won't touch is too long. it's like whiplash, what i'm allowed to eat or drink, where i'm allowed to shop. because we should be making a stand, right? they should know that we don't give money toward this and that and the other thing.

but instead, i'm closing my eyes on the deck of the ship, and i can hear the roaring of a dragon. it's me, with scales on the ground and skin ripped and bleeding. and He has claws and eyes...piercing, calm, quiet eyes. and He's tearing, and rending, and gashing, and i'm getting smaller and smaller and smaller still.

{via pinterest

the point of being with Jesus is not to be made bigger. the point isn't to be seen on the streetcorners with signs of broken bloody babies and screeching murderer into broken lives. the point isn't to grasp the arms of the ones with rainbows on their cheeks and glare into their eyes to make sure they know that they're sinners and we hate them.

and people on the street are catching my arm. do you know Him? do you know Him? and i say no, i don't. but He knows me. and He knew me before i was the Christian definition of desirable. He knew me when they dragged me out and flung me in the dirt. and He wrote in the dirt and they walked away in silence. He knows me. 

i'm tired. i'm so tired of being forced to act like i know Him, all of Him, every in and out and twist and turn of this thing called Christianity. if this is what Christianity is, then that's not a title i claim. i claim one thing, and one thing only.

i'm still thrashing. but i claim Him.
and He claims me.

permission to not have answers {page five}

i realized something today. i realized that i've been talking so much about all the permission i have found in telling my story :: but i haven't really told you any of my story. which is actually relatively funny, seeing as how i've become more and more free with sharing my story with the world in recent months.

there's a certain level of fear that comes with telling my story. it takes bravery to stand up and stammer out, i grew up Christian because i was supposed to, not because i chose Jesus above everything else. it takes a strange amount of courage to admit that from a very early age, i was that person, the one that gripped people by the throat and dragged them to the feet of Jesus whether they wanted to be there or not.

i made sure they knew they were sinners. i made sure they knew they were going to hell. that is, unless they became Christians.

i remember the girl in the department store, the one that i cornered at the age of five and asked, if you died tonight, do you know where you'd go? and then came the words that scarred the little missionary in me for a very long time :: uh, yeah, why are you asking crazy questions? 

that was my persecution, i was sure. and so i soldiered on, relentless in my pursuit to change the world for Jesus. i was on fire. or rather, i thought i was on fire. but i had no idea what i was doing. i had no idea what i believed. well, i believed what everyone else around me believed. i knew what i was supposed to think, and that was what i thought.

it wasn't until i was seventeen and i experienced the quietest moment of my life that things started to change. and it wasn't until even later still that i received permission from myself and from the One who sees me to question everything. i never would have dared to even think the things that now are the mantra of my entire existence.

{via pinterest}

not too long ago, a precious soul-sister sent me beautiful words, etched in paint and ink, that i have held close from the moment my eyes first beheld them :: He is not threatened by your questions. i grew up in a place where my questions meant my faith wasn't sure, and that wasn't okay. i was just supposed to trust, to lean, to go with what i knew, and knowing equaled faith.

there wasn't any mystery. there wasn't any wrestling. there weren't any questions.

except i had a lot of questions that didn't have answers. i didn't understand why those around me shouldered these heavy chains and walked with their heads down, murmuring about joy in their souls but with such strange oppression on their faces. this is what God says, they chanted, this is what we must do. but they wouldn't touch the broken ones that lined the road. and they looked me in the eye and held out their hands to me, Christian me, church me. the one that fit.

and then i had to wonder, what if they knew my story? would they hold out their hands then? because i know what i was, before this strange thrashing freedom came, and i would have crossed to the other side of the road. 

and it was then that He made Himself known to me, this strange Voice that loomed out the darkness.

:: dearest daughter, I have known you long. 

and this Voice, this Lion...He didn't seem threatened by my not-knowing. in fact, it seemed to fit. because He wasn't safe, which felt so foreign. He was supposed to be safe, to be full of facts and thick black lines, and there weren't supposed to be any questions.

but i had so. many. questions.

{via pinterest}

and i found myself standing on the edge of the sea, feeling the spray from the waves soaking every inch of me, through to the skin. and He murmured, deep into my soul, oh dearheart, I know there is a sea of questions. but I AM the great bridge-builder. and I can wait for you forever. 

i've never felt so fragile, as though a wind might knock me over. but then, i've never felt so free, as though i'm riding on the back of the warmest, wildest One i've ever known. i still have so many questions. but answers are slipping in, finding their places, one little scrap of wood at a time. and slowly, a bridge is forming.

i am fragile. the wood is strong.
and i can feel the flames building inside me again.

{this was written as part of a synchroblog to celebrate the release of Addie Zierman’s book When We Were On Fire. i'm honoured to stand beside her and a thousand others as we speak our stories, share our pieces. won't you join us?}

do not dare not to dare //

{photo by dramaticelegance}

i feel like the world has been chasing me with this thrashing. honestly, i think it's really comical that this thing that i have been hiding from for so long is now pursuing me, or at least putting itself in my path. i turn twenty-three in little less than a week, and i am just discovering. someone told me that it's because i'm aware of it, in tune with myself now.

but i don't think that's entirely the reason. i think that my eyes are finally open enough that the calling, the pulling, has finally allowed itself to crawl out from the cave and whisper i'm here. i've always been here. can you see me? 

part of me really wants to write about this. i feel like i've been waiting for my entire life to feel this strange warring freedom. but then comes that fear, the familiar flavour that weighs my soul down. it almost makes me want to let go and let the current pull me the safe way, the way that doesn't make my arms ache.


i wrote some time ago about taking off the veil and looking darkness in the eyes. i don't mean evil darkness :: the Lion already holds the key. i mean the strange unknown, the part that lingers in the  shadow when i've been too scared to pull back the curtains and let the light trace over my skin.

i'm not ashamed. i am afraid. but i am pressing my forehead against the stone wall while i seek solace from the din.

sometimes being on the ground // means a new season is coming

{photo by dramaticelegance}

it's autumn. there's a lot of death associated with the falling leaves and fading grass. but there's something resurrecting about this season. it's been hot, pressing, almost suffocating, with air so thick that i almost wanted to push it off myself like a constricting garment. 

and then comes the whispering cool air, taking my hair and floating it across my face. it's like some ethereal veil reminding me, you are seen, if only by He that holds the Wind

and He is not threatened by your questions. 

it's a digging in. it's painful. it's reaching deep into yourself with gently curling fingers and digging into the dirt. and it makes me shudder and gasp. it's gorgeous. 

sometimes He digs in His claws and flays me wide. but that's not what He's doing right now. my soul is whispering, echoing soft Lion-growl :: do not dare not to dare. (lewis) i am humming His name like it's the last melody i know. i am reaching up.

{to learn more about Mandy's book, visit messy canvas. to read all the posts in my personal thrashing journey, visit here}

unsanitized sanctuary

{via pinterest}

i'm a watcher.

when i go places, i find a corner in which to tuck myself and i start to gaze. not awkward staring, but secret studying from under long, dark lashes. it's an art, studying the world, perhaps the most education of behaviors.

:: because you learn about yourself when you look at the mirror of another's eyes.

this is why community is so important, perhaps more important than this thing of too many words, too much sentiment that trails off and runs into trivialities when we stop paying true attention. i think this is why this concept of {wild}erness appeals to me in such a soul-thudding way. it's more than just a metaphorical landscape. it's a place where the soul wanders and wrestles and clings tight.

it's amazing how many of us are holding hands, taking step after step through the wilderness together, one made of pines and one made of sand and another made of barren stone. but we're all there together.

if you have a deep scar, that is a door.

if you have an old, old story, that is a door.  

if you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door.

:: Clarissa Pinkola Estés

we've crafted a place together, a worn and rugged sanctuary with water for washing and shelter from our individual storms. our mermaid cave with bit of preciousness, our hunting shack in the midst of the mountains. and there in the middle is a burning fire and blankets knitted to fit each of our souls, a perfect match of blue and green and white and cranberry red.

it's comforting when the world is trying to twist and turn and wipe every germ of "unclean, unclean" from the surface of faith.

why is the world obsessed with taming faith? even in the ruggedness of the mountain wilderness, somehow we always seem to pack hand sanitizer to spray all over everything, including the body of the Most High. 

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we wouldn't want to get blood on the sofa. 

but He was the One that bent with a towel around His waist to wash our feet with a soft murmur of follow Me. 

there's a painted wooden sign that sits on the wooded island across the river from my sacred hideaway. i can't ever see what it says, but i like to imagine :: warning, wildness beyond this point. and outside this special sanctuary, i see a sign just like that one. 

caution :: wildness ahead

it seems to fit. He's not a tame Lion, and i want to be like Him.

so i'm curled around the fire with sisters all around in our church in the wild, a sanctuary together. and the Lion is singing a wild song to the stars.

:: gentle, gentle

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 we are not gentle people. we have very heavy feet, and so often, they find their way to treading heedlessly on the dreams of others.

dreams are gentle things. they are big things, even if their keepers have no idea just how wide their wings might spread. they are delicate things, easily broken if they are not given care. it doesn't take much for careless fiddling to pluck each feather from its place and leave them a pile. and then the dreamer must rebuild, if they ever dare again.

there is sweetness deep inside, a kind of fruit worth savouring but so easy to bruise and destroy if we press too hard. and we are not gentle people.

:: but i want to be. 

i've started to focus on my mouth recently. the way my lips form words, the way they open when i inhale. what comes out with the breath, i wonder?

is it Light, radiant and luminescent, whispering Life into each soul that i encounter. or is it too late because my fingers caught the flame and pinched it dark?

because the seekers are met with sideways glances and the wrestling ones are given a wider berth, and the lonely hearts echo like windchimes in a wasteland, an empty beauty that everyone else is missing. and the whispers come, how dare they? they should know better. 

what you held in your hand, 

{photo property of dramaticelegance}

what you counted and carefully saved, 

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness. 

{Naomi Shihab Nye}

and i can't help but look at them and quietly weep because i've been there, just where they are. and maybe i still am, a little bit, because my footing is learning these mountain heights, where the other does leap like grace and i'm still white-knuckled. but i look to my left and to my right and see others there. beautiful ones with half-plucked wings wrapped in linen and eyes so full of soul that it takes my breath away.

this is my tribe, my Love-sisters. and we've made a circle of shoes on the ground where we all sit together, this holy sacred place that hums with hints of Lion's song still so alive in the earth. and we plant our seeds, one beside the other, and watch them lift their boughs to the sky and murmur, He-Who-Sees is here. 

and we hold hands and hum familiar notes that shimmer in the new-breathed air from a Lion's mouth, the place where we have all found ourselves. there is water there, for we are deep-living mermaids with transforming souls. there is fire there, soft and warm to comfort shivering souls. and softly, together, we seek His face.

and we are holding hands and whispering together

gentle, gentle 
:: we are brave

fall fresh on me // avocado

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i've always been captivated by the inside. by the stuff that no one sees, the painting underneath the varnish that was forgotten for a hundred years until one brave chisel flaked away the dark to show the light.

and it's springtime, or almost, and i'm watching as life is fighting winter every minute and every second to find its way out of the ground and into the blue sky world out here.

i saw a little girl find a feather the other day, and she smiled and held it up, and the silken strands were still so strong despise the wind and rain and squashy mud all around. and my soul picked up the feather too and tucked it in my hair, the little girl in my heart throwing back long dark waves of hair and laughing to the sky

Spirit of the living God,
;; fall fresh on me

and i'm starting to find God in the little things again, the things i forgot. and i know i've written here a thousand times about the beautiful ones, the almost hidden ones in the Bible, the ones He noticed that were invisible to everyone else.

it's the slicing of the avocado, that thick black shell melting away under silver to reveal the green of nourishment and the thick pit that holds life at even its tiny tight-locked core. and it's marvelous how much life can be wrapped up in something so wrinkled and unappealing to the eye.

sometimes i feel the pain of that knife slicing so smooth through the vileness that has built up around the life potential He placed in my heart of hearts. and it hurts so that i falter and weep and beg

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Spirit of the living God
:: fall fresh on me

and then the green is seen, and the life tucked away deep within comes to the surface and blooms rich like springtime with glory and life shining from every pore. oh, how i ache to be radiant, to cover my face with a veil for the Light bursting from me to every corner.

now i feel infant fingers pull at long waves of my raven-wing hair, and i bring down my own fingers on the soft ginger gosling down that clings to the head of my beautiful little one. i think of future days when i will brush her hair and tell her about feathers and grace and the Light of the Son.

but for now, she falls asleep on my shoulder and lets loose the sweetest of baby sighs, and i feel something stir deep inside my soul. it's that little girl, tucking the feather behind her ear. she sits beneath a tree with the soles of her feet pressed together and elbows on knees.

and she whispers soft like the newcoming springtime breezes

Spirit of the living God,
:: fall fresh on me

upward gaze ::

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i've decided to stop looking down

because all that's down there is grass and dirt and my feet and the path less traveled. 

and He's not underground anymore, because He's risen and now sits among the stars. and i'm going to spend my hours in the stars this spring. no more shame with downcast eyes and hesitant steps that aren't exactly sure, that aren't exactly steadfast. 

now that she's back in the atmosphere

with drops of Jupiter in her hair

she acts like summer and walks like rain

reminds me that there's a time for change ::

drops of jupiter // train

people are living on the "even the..." too much these days, while i'm rubbing the eraser over those words until they disintegrate into thin rubber strands on the paper and get brushed away as far as the East is from the West. 

i'm resolving and loving regardless. and that includes loving you in the skin you're in, and looking past sex and race and orientation because those are words but they're are who you are, too. because He didn't stop and pass out checkboxes just to make sure the crowds were lovable before He stretched out His arms and poured out pints and pints of redeeming blood. 

so why do i?

so no more looking at the crowds with pointed fingers, Church-Bride. no more figures where faces should be. see the dove daughters and rainbow hued sons and paint-streaked kings and offbeat queens, just like He did. 

and that means loving you too. it means loving me like i'm worthy of His death and rising and loving and sword to the throat of Hell for me, oh all for me. and for you. and them.

:: amen.

so let it be.

if you dare

it's the one about revelation. it's the one about life unrestrained and the stuff that comes along with it, day by day.

it's the one about renewal and restoration. embracing the challenge, living in the freedom we craved and received and now are almost too afraid to reach out and take.

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i thew my hands in the air and said

"show me something"

He said

"if you dare, come a little closer."

stay // rihanna

and i'm digging in my heels and shaking my head back and forth because i'm afraid. but arrows have to be pulled back to fly forward, and so i'm releasing my grip and letting my head lean up with mouth open to taste the rain of His goodness and mercy. 

sometimes i feel like a collage, scrap paper pieced together like little girl dreams of this and that with glue sticks and glitter, except with bigger girl dreams that are just as fragile and just as deep.

it's like holding that match to newspaper, watching the flames expand and the statue turn from stone to new living skin and blood and breath. the thunder rolls like the churning mantra in my soul, and i find
my way to stomping and lifting my face to the sky.

if you dare, come a little closer.

hesitant on the water's edge, whispering, i'm thirsty...will You promise not to hurt me? 

and He says that He can make no such promise, but i come and dip my hand in the stream anyway because the Water is living and i am dying slowly without Him flowing through my body like liquid Light.  

:: because i begged Him to show me something.

and He did. 

{linking with dear emily where we rejoice in imperfection} 

red-lettered lowercase

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i went back this morning and searched out the first post i ever wrote here sans capital letters. it was a spur of the moment, unstructured piece called ink of wait that i wrote in august of last year.

and i read that little poem and i cried like i did the day i wrote it, i remember. because oh, i wrote free then.

at the top of the blog of my dear friend, emily, there is a quote. thirteen words.

here is the world. beautiful and terrible things will happen. don't be afraid.

:: frederick beuchner :: 

and that quote grips me in the deep places that only me and Jesus can see. because it's more than just letters, after all. 

it's a fist pounding, a battle cry, a step against. because i am tired of the must-dos that Jesus didn't speak. the way the Church takes every word from their mouths and writes it in red, putting words and confinements into His mouth that taste bitter with sorrow and weigh heavy with impossibility. 

and letters are the first step.

i have turned the words of Mumford and Sons into a worship chant, a far-from-whispered battle march. 

awake my soul

awake my soul

awake my soul

you were made to meet your Maker. 

and that is where i live now. 

living in the red of His blood, and the black and white of truth and mercy. awakening to lowercase letters and unfettered freedom. 

:: releasing.  

dark light

live in the light

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stand in the sun

never look back.

these words have been whispered to me by a thousand voices in a thousand languages for the course of my entire life. and i think if you were raised in the church, you heard it, too. 

there is a place in this world where dark reigns supreme for six months of the year. the earth is tipped and the light cannot reach it there, not for all those weeks of night. and the people there wrap in furs and tangle fingers together and wait...

because they know that there is an end to the darkness. and then comes the six months of light, and the darkness fades into a place of echoing radiance that spills from fingertips and spiraled ends of hair.

but they feel the light because they knew the dark. they cannot appreciate one without the other's balance. 

it's the same with us, the same with the life we live and the breath we inhale every single day a thousand times without even realizing. and the voices that whisper never look back are wrong to wish you blind to the past and wide-eyed to forever. 

both are needed. we have a moon to cool the sun, and a sun to warm the moon. we must have both for tides and seasons and growth.

what matters is how you breathe in the night. do you stare at the midnight and scream light is dead, and never will come back again?

or do you look at the stars and say there is light here. 

for you were once dead in your sin

but God, rich in mercy, made us alive.

:: ephesians 2:1, 4 ::

i refuse to stop loving for fear of the night. i will dance below the stars instead, fingers spread toward the moon and inhaling beam after beam of silver light. 

for i was once dead,

but God...

brave life :: on skin

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i read a quote today, the first line of a blackout poem from the seeker heart of a girl whom i would call an inspiration and a friend. 

life printed on skin

a self-portrait must follow

this quote curled up and nested in my soul from the moment the words passed from eyes to mind. 

for a long time today, i sat and pondered, because i wasn't sure why these words spun silken threads of Light around me and held so fast. 

life printed on skin. 

and then i was drawn back to brave. 

because everyone sees your skin. 

yes, you can cover certain areas with clothing, even bundled from head to toe if you so choose. but you know what's there when the lights go out and the garments slip from shoulder to floor. 

it's not tucked away under flesh and blood and bone like secrets that even x-rays can't reach. it's like the tattoo that stands bold on my wrist, thick black lines that the whole world can see. 

and it's a choice we have. 

a self-portrait we must follow. 

we can tuck down and hide, ducking behind the blankets and begging the world to close its eyes and just look away, just for another minute of invisibility. 

but i feel like He holds out fingers to those corner-clingers, the ones that ache to hide in shadow. and He speaks of sacredness found in freedom, those footprints in the sand when we let Him left and carry. 

i'm brave now, or at least, i'm striving. 

striving hard to live eyes to the sky with outstretched arms, bare with scars and marks. 

because He's in love with them, and so i must be, too.

in love with those lines and lines, thin and thick in black and white and whispers of technicolour of this self-portrait that whispers to His mercies, His glory, and His salvation. 

reaching moonward

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do you know how often i wish i could touch the moon?

it's the way i feel when a worship song slides down my spine and nests in my soul, as guitars strum and soft voices lift a single Name from Earth to Heaven. and all i can do is reach upward, fingers stretching out as though to grip the rafters and rise.

it's especially true on nights like this, when quilts and pillows comfort the sniffling and the sneezing. on oddly warm winter evenings when the sky is purple and orange and it's like watching the Saviour take a sacred moment to fingerpaint the sky.

and i reach out trembling hands, overcome with awe and wonder, up toward the mast where the albatross in the windstorm has roosted just long enough to roar in Lion's tongue

you are safe

you are loved

and you are Mine.

it's then that i ache just a bit inside. because like a wife who misses a husband gone with only telephone dials and cyber connections to keep them joined over seas and county lines, i ache for my Jesus. 

:: and so my fingers reach moonward ::

and i feel that overwhelming peace as moonlight shines down and i cry, oh, how i want to be brave. how i want to understand. and i am, because that's what He promised. we linked fingers, He and i, over a glass of merlot and black ink promises of lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. 

He promised me brave. He promised me warrioress. He promised me daughter. 

and so i still reach moonward and sing to the darkness where my Saviour lingers

oh, i'm running to Your arms.

Light of the world,

forever reign.